Meet Andrew Kelley

Friends,  

I have been involved in herpetology since 1979 when I was five years old. I have kept many different reptiles since, from Gila monsters to dart frogs. Over the years I have also kept Womas, emerald tree boas, Basins, Suriname red tail boas, jungle carpet pythons, ball pythons, various chameleons, turtles, and my favorite species, the green tree python. Like many enthusiasts, my passion for diversity in regards to Herpetoculture has led me into various projects throughout my life.

In 1997, I received a gift from my parents for college graduation: 2.2 green tree pythons from an individual living in Arizona. We purchased the animals as adult, captive-born animals that were ready to breed. However, I received a sub-adult, wild-caught female, two males, and an adult female that I thought was an extremely unattractive specimen. Having pictured in my mind that classic, crisp, brilliant green with blue accents and white speckles down the back, this mustard green animal with yellow was not what I had expected at all; in fact, at the time, I thought it was just simply ugly. After an unpleasant initial experience and attempting to return the animals, I set forth with my initial efforts to breed the group and salvage as much as possible from the experience.

I then moved to Boulder, CO, where I set up all of the animals and started to cycle my green tree pythons for breeding. After reading every piece of literature and talking to all the herpetologists that I could, I was successful breeding green tree pythons my first year. With as much luck as properly applying the techniques that I had learned, 49 days after oviposition I was looking at my own brilliant yellow and red hatchlings. Since 1997, I have successfully bred many captive-born green tree pythons. I have since worked with chondros exclusively.

Over the past few years I have acquired a few high end animals starting with a trip to Jeff Hudson's to pick up my first group of high end chondros.  As I entered his snake room my jaw was on the ground as I looked around and saw things I honestly did not know existed - ever since then I have dedicated my hobby to collecting and attempting to produce amazing chondro pythons.  This long road with these little tree pythons reached an important milestone in the beginning of 2009 when Greg Maxwell and I reached a deal for me to buy his business and take over the care of his best chondros!  What a thrill it was to work with Greg on this and go to his snake rooms and look at all the amazing creatures - it was very similar for me to the Hudson experience.  

I will never forget my first success in hatching out my small red and yellow gems from that "ugly ducking" of a female chondro that upon inspection by other collectors turned into a designer, one-of-a-kind animal. After that first breeding success, I was hooked - after seeing what they could turn in to: Super Blue, Dream, Calico, HY, Melanistic, Black project, Kaleidoscope, etc, etc ............ I was finished!

Thanks for stopping by - Quality is contagious! 

email: andrew@finegtps.com